The Ladies of Garrison Gardens (35 page)

Chapter Seventy-four

LAUREL

2004

L
AUREL STOOD IN THE FOYER
of her new home with a beer in her hand. She looked up at the skylights and held her beer up high in the time-honored toastmaster position. “Okay, Peggy,” she said loudly, “here's to you. I'll do my best to make you proud.” She started to drink and then stopped. “Here's to Miss Myrtis too.” And she took a nice long swallow of the beer.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LOUISE SHAFFER, the author of
The Three Miss Margarets
, is a graduate of Yale Drama School, has written for television, and has appeared on Broadway, in TV movies, and in daytime dramas, earning an Emmy for her work on
Ryan's Hope
. Shaffer and her husband live in the Lower Hudson Valley.

A
LSO BY
L
OUISE
S
HAFFER

The Three Miss Margarets

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2005 by Louise Shaffer

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Shaffer, Louise.
The ladies of Garrison Gardens: a novel / Louise Shaffer.
p. cm.
1. Women—Georgia—Fiction. 2. City and town life—Fiction. 3. Female friendship—Fiction. 4. Georgia—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3569.H3112L33 2005      813'.54—dc22      2004062728

www.ballantinebooks.com

eISBN: 978-0-345-48433-8

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